Copyright: (C) Copyright 1991-1997 Burkhard Eichberger, Professional Software Solutions, 1626 N.Wilcox Suite#252, Los Angeles, California 90028,   Tue Nov 18 16:07:41 1997
Citation: (C) Copyright 1991-1997 Burkhard Eichberger, Professional Software Solutions, 1626 N.Wilcox Suite#252, Los Angeles, California 90028, %date


UnixDos Text Display Module (TXTBOX)
TXTBOX (Advanced interactive text viewer)

Description

TXTBOX allows you to open any text file and view it in a user friendly environment

with command line options and optional interactive Button Mode

and many examples.

(Another fine product from: Professional Software Solutions)

The following features are available:

•	Unlimited file size

•	maximum line length is 10,000 characters

•	horizontal scrolling

•	vertical scrolling

•	line number display toggle

•	goto specified line

•	complete restore of all parameter after exit
(filename, windows position, search parameter, current line, colors, fonts ...)

•	regular expression and straight text search

•	automatic wrap option for searches

•	ignore case option for searches

•	color selection for text and background

•	font selection for text display

•	initial position device independent using percent instead of pixels

•	total line count and file size display

•	optional button feature to allow user to select choices

•	complete control via command line options (see below)

•	no disturbing wrapping of long lines

•	exit code depending on user response
(0=exit, 1=button1, 2=button2, 3=button3, 99=error)
(allowing you to implement TXTBOX in batch files for decisions and branching)

•	storage of exit code in special file for later retrieval

Button Mode

TXTBOX allows you to display the text and then allow the user to respond by pressing a button.

You can specify 1 to 3 buttons with your custom text. The buttons are displaye below the text centered to the window. Each text for a button can be up to 16 characters long.

You can specify that a response via the button click is required (-B) or leave it optional (-b)

Example:

Below you can see two buttons “Accept” and “Don’t accept”.

This is achived by the command line option (the quites are needed to include spaces and pipe):

txtbox “-bAccept|Don’t Accept”

To make the button selection required use the capital B:

txtbox “-BAccept|Don’t Accept”

To switch the button default off again use the empty -b switch:

txtbox -b

Command line options

txtbox [options] [file]

options: (can be used in any sequence)

+{n}	= Number   : start display from line number {n}

-b[t1[|t2[|t3]]

= Button   : define up to three buttons not required
t1 = text for button1

t2 = text for button2

t3 = text for button3

-B[t1[|t2[|t3]]

= Button   : define up to three buttons click required!
t1 = text for button1

t2 = text for button2

t3 = text for button3

-ct{clr}	= ColorTxt: define color for text

clr = RGB(red,green,blue) (0-255) or

clr = black,red,green,blue,yellow,

cyan,magenta,white,grey,orange

-d	= Default : restore all defaults

-e{fn}	= ExitCode: specify the file to store the exit code:

0  = regular exit

1  = button1 clicked

2  = button2 clicked

3  = button3 clicked

1XX= error

by default code in: %TEMP%\txtbox.tmp

-f{p,n,w,i}= Font    : use specified font for text:

p = point size (1 - 100)

n = font name

w = weight (100-999) bold=700, regular=400

I = italic (0=off, 1=on)

-h{hd}	= Header   : use ‘hd’ as header for TXTBOX:

the following special command are available:

&B	= current filesize

&C	= current column offset

&E	= current maximum line length

&F	= current filename

&L	= current line number

&M	= current total number of lines

-l{0|1}	= LineNbr  : show line numbers -l0=off, -l1=on

-o{Col}	= Column   : goto column ‘Col’ (default is 0=first column)

-p{x,y,cx,cy}

= Position : open window at position:

all values are in percent (0-100) allowing you

device independent positioning!

x  = upper left corner horz position in percent

y  = upper left corner vert position in percent

cx = width in percent

cy = height in percent

-s{c,l}	= Scroll   : define overlapping Scroll parameter

c = cols to keep for page left/right scroll

(0=no overlap, 1-80=cols, 10=default)

l = lines to keep for page up/down (1)

(0=no overlap, 1-30=lines, 1=default)

-t{n}	= Tab      : set number of space for TAB character (default 8)

[file]	= file to be viewed initially

(can be placed anywhere also between options)
(no file is OK, screen will just be blank)

Example1 (button - optional):

This example will display file ‘\temp\oldlog,.txt’ with two button below “Delete” and “Keep”.

The Text is displayed in blue with yellow background.

txtbox  “-bDelete|Keep” \temp\oldlog.txt -ctBlue -cbYelloW

Example2 (button - required, interactive, exit code):

To make example1 part of an interactive batch file prompting the user if the file should be deleted with a required response:

wait_end txtbox "-BDelete|Keep" \temp\oldlog.txt  -ctBlue -cbYelloW

call saveexit

test -e 1 run: banner delete

WAIT_END, SAVEEXIT and TEXT are UnixDos programs at http://www.unixdos.com.

WAIT_END will execute the specified program but wait until it is complete!

SAVEEXIT will save the last error level for later retrieval and TEST.EXE.

TEST is testing the expression (in this case the last exit code) and executing the specified program,

you could also use IF ERRORLEVEL {n}.

Example3 (loading a font):

You can select an existing font already at the command line.

In this example we use “Times New Roman” with point size 15 and bold weight (700) in italc:

txtbox \temp\oldlog.txt “-f15,Times New Roman,700,1”

Note the double quotes around the font option in order to pass the following arguments into TXTBOX as ONE argument (not broken up into several arguments)

Example4 (show lines, use header, start at a line):

In this exmaple we switch the line number display on, start at line 893 and use a custom header:

txtbox -l1 +893 “-hFile: %F at line %l or %m” \temp\oldlog.txt

Note the double quotes around the header option in order to pass the following arguments into TXTBOX as ONE argument (not broken up into several arguments)

Example5 (window positioning,column offset,scroll parameter):

In this exmaple we will request a specific position on the screen:

Upper left hand corder at left egde and in the middle of the screen. (0,50)

Width is 70% of the screen and height is 40%.

The display will start at column 40 and use no overlap for line sor columns:

txtbox -p0,50,70,40 -c40 -s0,0

Note that we don’t specify any filename in which case TXTBOX will use automatically.the filename from the last session.

Example6 (reset):

Sometimes you want to start from scratch; remove all the previous settings.

For this situation the ‘-d’ option has been included, which will wipe a clean slate and only add the options you specify to the internal default:

txtbox -d -p0,50,70,40 -c40 -s0,0

Note the parameter from the last session is stored in the same directory where TXTBOX has been called in the file TXTBOX.DAT. So if you want to maintain several sets of defaults you can store and restore this file at the times you need them.

For more information contact:

Professional Software Solutions

1626 North Wilcox Suite #252
Los Angeles, California 90028

pss@pobox.com

http://www.unixdos.com

Copyright © 1991-1997 Burkhard Eichberger

Copyright © 1991-1997 Professional Software Solutions

All Rights Reserved Worldwide